The Glade 4.0

It had been a while since I saw the dentist, but I have some very good teeth genes. Never needed braces. Before I started drinking diet, my old dentist (who found no cavities) was completely floored when I told him how much Coke I consumed per day (around 1.5 liters). He acted like that was information he wanted kept on the down-low.

Anyway, I go for a regular check-up/cleaning last week. Just one cavity, but nothing that was causing me discomfort (I expected at least a cavity). But then he shows me an xray of one of my teeth and how decay was coming in from the side (where only flossing makes a difference) and that it looked like it had already hit the nerve. In fact, he was shocked (I tend to shock dentists a lot, apparently) that I wasn't in pain now. He said I needed a root canal.

Great. Fine. A regular checkup turns into a root canal. I agree.

Had the root canal done yesterday, but during the procedure he stumbles upon something that completely baffles him (again, apparently this is my super power). It's some sort of growth that is porous like bone. He thinks it's either one of two things. One of those things means it's no big deal. The other means: tooth extraction.

So I sit here with a hollowed-out tooth with a temporary filling (which makes my mouth taste like bad medicine) and I am off to see a specialist in an hour. Just so he can tell me "Pfft. That's nothing. Here's my bill." or "Yep, we gotta pull that tooth. What expensive replacement options would you like? Oh, and here's my bill."

All this, from a regular cleaning when I wasn't having any problems. Here's hoping my superpower doesn't baffle this guy too. I hope it only works on dentists, and not endontists.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Yeah, but to be fair most issues would be identified during regular checkups if you went regularly.

A few years ago, I had the beginnings of a cavity. They offered to fill it, but I said I'd get it done later. They said I'd be back in three months with pain. A year later I went back in and had no cavities. I asked about it and they said it appeared to have filled itself in.... I didn't think they could do that.

I need to go back, it's been a while.

It's possible. It wasn't extremely obvious even on the xray, so it's possible a less competent dentist wouldn't have even noticed. Especially since I wasn't complaining of pain.

The problem with Internal Resorption or Enamel Pearls are that they're usually not detectable by standard xray. So it's actually best that a root canal was suggested at this point.

So, it definitely was Internal Resorption (a rare thing, the one thing I didn't want) as opposed to an Enamel Pearl (the thing I wanted it to be). But, there is a strong chance the tooth can be saved. It's just a matter of waiting at this point to see if my body decides that the tooth is still a foreign object to be fought and begins the process again.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Be very careful with this.

There has been a trend recently of Dentists doing unecessary procedures. Crowns an root canals are the most popular because they are the most profitable.

A local dentist here lost his license and was forced to pay most of his patients a settlement after it was found he was doing unneeded root canals and crowns.

Here is one of the stories
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/ ... ctxml.html

My previous dentist(s) was a Columbian brother/sister who bought the practice from my long time family dentist when he retired.

They were also accused of doing unecessary procedures, as well as billing patients for work they had not done.

They closed the practice and fled back to Columbia (presumably) after a lawsuit was filed.

Yeah that had crossed my mind. But I was honestly not surprised that this particular tooth needed it, even after seeing my xray. I am nearly certain the root cause of it all was poorly done filling (from a different dentist). The internal resorption usually stems from some sort of trauma to the tooth, and I am willing to bet that was it (since I've never had anything else done to that tooth).

Definitely will keep it in mind.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

My right lateral incisor has internal resorption. My dentist was somewhat surprised I wasn't in screaming agony. Since I wasn't, however, he filled the tooth (a hole had decayed through up near the gum line) and told me it would probably have some bouts of strange or painful sensations as the nerve died. It's still solidly attached a year and a half after discovery, but it may end up needing to be pulled. And yeah, my dentist indicated that, though they weren't sure what caused it, an internal resorption seemed to be correlated with blunt trauma. I can't argue with that, I've taken my share of getting busted in the chops. It has to be fairly rare, though, otherwise the rest of my teeth would be in the same boat, considering.

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